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In Nigeria, the Price for Oil Is Blood

July 1994. The Oil Daily reports that Gen. Sani Abacha, chairman of Nigeria's Provisional Ruling Council and commander in chief of the armed forces, has responded to strikes by oil workers and demands for increased revenue-sharing with local communities ''by declaring the death penalty on anyone who interferes with the government's efforts to 'revitalize' the oil industry.''

November 1995. General Abacha carries out this intention by putting to death the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others who had expressed concern for the welfare of the Ogoni people and the depredation of its environment in relation to the exploitation of oil.

March 1997. General Abacha's military Government charges Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian Nobel Prize laureate in literature and longtime influential advocate of the Ogoni cause, with the capital offense of treason. General Abacha is consistent -- his declaration has not been amended in any way by his other declarations -- that Nigeria is on the path to democracy, which will culminate in civilian rule in October 1998. The penalty on the head of Wole Soyinka is the death penalty.

In the intervening years, the questions of freedom of the press and expression in Nigeria have become an issue for Nigerians and for those of us who have never set foot in that country but who know that if, in what is optimistically called the global village, the lines go down in one street the power failure is the responsibility of all inhabitants.

Many journalists have been detained; some have disappeared -- dead or alive. At times, the issue of press freedom has appeared to be separate from that of the death penalty carried out on individuals who have taken up the case of the Ogoni people.

But the issues are one: While some journalists have fallen foul of the regime for criticizing aspects of its rule other than its oil industry, an overwhelming number have succumbed because of their reporting and criticism of the conditions under which the oil fields operate in Ogoni, particularly in the Government's joint venture with Royal Dutch/ Shell.

In Nigeria you can be put to death for placing humble human well-being as a value even equal to, let alone above, the value of oil profits. The price of life: it was exacted from Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others; it is General Abacha's intention that it should be exacted from Wole Soyinka.

Mr. Soyinka is in exile, but this certainly does not mean that he is safe. He has fame and eloquent conviction to insure him a hearing wherever in the world he speaks out, as he will, against the abuses of human rights in Nigeria. And there are Nigerians living all over the world among whom General Abacha might find some willing to carry out his declared death penalty. There is the live danger that what is implied by the penalty being imposed on someone in exile is a secular fatwa.

There can be no illusion over the importance of the oil industry to Nigeria. The oil fields supply 80 percent of its revenue. The country and its people need to tap their bountiful resource. But to buy Nigeria's oil under the conditions that prevail is to buy oil in exchange for blood. Other people's blood; the exaction of the death penalty on Nigerians.

Gopalkrishna Gandhi, grandson of Mohandas K. Gandhi and now High Commissioner for India in my country, South Africa, said the other day: ''The task of regarding the equal development of all humankind as one vehicle, one journey, remains to be completed.'' Shell, oil, the tyranny of the Abacha regime, this is our business, our governments', our international organizations' -- our journey.

Because I am a South African addressing Americans, when it comes to the action or lack of it on the part of various countries, I find myself focusing on our two countries. But there is a more cogent reason, I believe. Yours is the most powerful country in the world today; ours is the country with the highest moral stature, as represented by President Nelson Mandela and our transition from an appalling human rights record, under apartheid, to democratic freedom through reconciliation of enemies. What are these two countries doing about the violent repression of human rights in Nigeria?

The Congress of South African Writers demonstrated in 1995 before the Nigerian Consulate in Johannesburg against the travesty of justice in the trial and execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa, and were joined by trade unionists, representatives of the African National Congress and members of civil rights groups. The consulate turned the water sprinklers on us.

But this did not dampen convictions. A Support Nigeria Committee was formed, and campaigned successfully to inform the public and encourage government action; it has not reacted with the same energy, so far, on the issue of Mr. Soyinka. The various associations of journalists, though highly active on issues of press freedom and human rights in our country, have not applied themselves in any significant way to the fate of their colleagues in Nigeria.

What has the South African Government done? After the executions of November 1995, President Mandela's immediate and vociferous condemnation of this gross violation of human rights led the British Commonwealth Heads of Government to suspend Nigeria from membership. Later, Mr. Mandela called upon Nigeria's major trading partners, including the United States, to impose sanctions on Nigeria. He met with no success.

So far as our own continent is concerned, in 1996 Mr. Mandela acknowledged that ''Africa is not speaking with one voice'' on Nigeria. The Southern Africa Development Community and the Organization of African Unity have been cautious about any ''interference'' in brother African states. Representatives from countries in West Africa and the United Nations Secretary General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, made a case for soft-pedaling on Nigeria on grounds that Nigeria is responsible for law and order in Sierra Leone and Liberia by contributing a large peacekeeping force there.

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South Africa, apparently discouraged by the lack of success in unilateral action, even coming from the unchallenged moral authority of Mr. Mandela, became less outspoken. The South African Government has now taken up a multilateral approach through its membership in the Commonwealth and on the U.N. Human Rights Commission, which has been trying to get General Abacha to agree, without impossibly restrictive conditions, to a fact-finding mission. South Africa recently hosted a pan-African meeting on the establishment of an African Court on Human and People's Rights, which the O.A.U. Council on Ministers is expected to consider in June.

Both Mr. Mandela and South Africa's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alfred Nzo, have publicly condemned the actions against Mr. Soyinka and 15 others. And at a Human Rights Commission meeting in Geneva in April, South Africa displayed a resurgence of its independent spirit by breaking ranks with 14 other countries and voting to put Nigeria under special U.N. scrutiny for its human rights abuses. This opposition to General Abacha's savage continuing assault on human rights, human life, needs to be determinedly pursued to set an example for African states that are shamefully hanging back from their responsibilities.

In the United States, the Government ''strongly condemned'' the executions of Mr. Saro-Wiwa and others in 1995, and the way in which the victims were condemned outside the judicial system. President Clinton banned military sales to Nigeria, and extended the current ban on visas to include all ''who actively formulate, implement or benefit from policies that impede Nigeria's transition to democracy.'' The United States continued to oppose International Monetary Fund loans, credits and debt relief for Nigeria.

In 1996, however, the United States, like other countries, was stronger on rhetoric than action. Congressional hearings were held in May of last year on a bill to codify the sanctions against Nigeria, but it never went to a vote. While Assistant Secretary of State John Shattuck visited Nigeria in June 1996 and noted ''a steady deterioration in the human rights situation'' since 1993, and the United States issued strong condemnations of military rule and human rights violations, no steps were taken to put such statements into effect.

In January 1997, the State Department's spokesman, Nicholas Burns, reiterated ''grave concern'' over continuing and new detentions of Nigerians. Then came March 12 and the death penalty charges against Wole Soyinka and 15 other opponents of the military Government. The United States urged General Abacha to insure that ''any trials be fair and open and held in civilian courts with those charged receiving complete access to representation of their choice, and to their doctors and their families.''

In March, the European Union's resolution on Nigeria was presented to Congress thus: ''As you consider your policy activities re Nigeria, please consider the Abacha regime's clear intention in local elections . . . to exclude opposition groups from participation.'' The resolution urged the Commonwealth to expel Nigeria at the next meeting of its heads of state in October, and called on the European Council to embargo Nigerian oil and freeze financial assets held by the Government, its officials and their families.

So far this year, the total official response from the Clinton Administration amounts to support for a U.N. fact-finding mission on Nigeria. There is no more than talk in Congress about introducing a bill to codify executive sanctions against Nigeria already in place.

It seems it is left to civil rights groups to act as best they can, not only on behalf of Wole Soyinka but also on the wider, continuing issue of the Ogoni people and oil.

For the PEN American Center, Amnesty International and environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth, the equal development of all humankind is one journey on which our companions cannot be abandoned in the ditches of military rule. A recent open letter on Wole Soyinka's situation, signed by eight of his Nobel Prize companions, is intended to challenge the United States Government and Americans in general.

PEN's concerns are not confined to the special interest of writers. PEN Center USA West has published a remarkable report on the relationship between Shell and Nigeria that put questions to the company and published their answers. PEN calls on Shell to insure full access to the Ogoni area for journalists and international observers as a necessary condition for Shell's return to operations in the area, which it left in 1993 because of workers' actions and international protest.

PEN also asks Shell to issue a statement regretting its post-execution criticisms of international organizations which had sought to prevent Mr. Saro-Wiwa's execution.

In the past, while generally lamenting human rights abuses, Shell has excused itself from connection with the abuses of the Abacha Government. Last year, Shell produced a ''Plan for Ogoni,'' committing itself to clean up oil spills and underwrite development within the community. Yet at a meeting this month, it defeated a shareholders' motion that demanded outside auditors to determine whether Shell follows its own rules.

It is direct measures by governments, the United Nations, Unesco, the European Union, the O.A.U. -- the formations of political power -- that are essential to put a stop to all abuses of flesh, mind and spirit in Nigeria. When the world changes the oil in the luxury vehicle of democratic freedom, it must make sure that oil does not come from the Ogoni of Nigeria at the price of their exploitation, and at the price of the lives of people like Ken Saro-Wiwa and Wole Soyinka.

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A version of this op-ed appears in print on May 25, 1997, on Page 4004011 of the National edition with the headline: In Nigeria, the Price for Oil Is Blood. Today's Paper|Subscribe